Massive wasps flying around and picking fights with monster-sized spiders? Yeah, that sounds like something pretty normal for Australia.
There’s not much that comes out of the Land Down Under that should surprise anyone, right? The only thing that Australia really exports nowadays is wild, can’t-help-but-watch outdoor videos.
And in this one, we’ve got a Spider wasp taking on a large Wolf spider right in the middle of the road, and boy, is it gnarly. I’m not sure what the Las Vegas odds would be on a fight like this, but it’s probably safe to say that it doesn’t go like you would expect it to.
The person filming the battle comes up upon it when it has already started. However, just based on the history and known facts about the Spider wasp, it’s likely that the flying insect was the one that picked the fight.
Though the Wolf spider definitely has the size advantage over the Spider wasp, it appears that the flying ability of the wasp gives it the upper hand. The massive spider tries its best to keep the flying creepy crawler in front of it, but ultimately fails at doing so, which proved to be costly.
Once the wasp managed to get behind the Wolf spider, that was pretty much all she wrote. The winged insect then used its stinger to paralyze the larger spider, and that effectively ended the showdown.
If you thought paralysis for the spider was bad, it actually manages to get worse for the arachnid afterwards. Spider wasps normally use this type of strategy to make their opponent immobile, then drag them back to a den or burrow in order to feed their spider children.
The spider wasp will lay eggs either on or inside the spider, and once their larva hatch, they immediately start feeding on the paralyzed spider. And if that’s not an absolute nightmare scenario, I guess I don’t know what is.
Thankfully, that super scary “after part” of the attack isn’t included in the video. Below is just a clip of a Spider wasp kicking a Wolf spider’s ass, without the scary “baby wasp feeding” portion of the encounter.
Check it out:
